


Auditory

by infiniteworld8



Series: After Vengeance [3]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Death Wishes, Gen, Guilt, Internal Monologue, Introspection, Kirk can hear but not communicate, Locked-in syndrome, Near Death Experiences, Post-Star Trek: Into Darkness, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Stream of Consciousness, The after-effects of Khan's blood, Trapped in his own body
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-07-15 02:42:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7203023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infiniteworld8/pseuds/infiniteworld8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's alive... or at least he's alive as you can be when you can't see,  smell, feel or even communicate. This isn't life....he wishes he had died...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Auditory

_“How much longer…?”_

_…._

_“He’s not showing much brain activity, Starfleet Medical Ethics Board will have your license for this.”_

_..._

_“Jim, laddie. You’d be surprised how much progress we’re making with your ship...she’s a fighter just like you laddie...just like you laddie….”_

_..._

_Something crashing, the sound of metal clattering, a quiet yell of frustration… ”Come back to me kid..come back damn it!”_

_…_

_“Spock says they’ve found most of Admiral Marcus supporters. Sulu says the astro nav systems aren’t too badly damaged, but still we’re getting a refit with a new model. Pavel and Scotty are really making progress with the ship. Leonard...well you know he’s going crazy over you...he’s such a mother hen.”_

_..._

_“And you’re not?”_ Kirk thought the words, realising for the first time in what had to be hours... or maybe it was days that he was hearing… he wasn’t dead. Or if he was, his death had changed.

Before it had been just memories… floating… darkness. Now, the memories were there but there was something else there too. He could hear again… unless it was just something his mind had manufactured to keep him sane a little longer. He chose to believe it was real… he needed something real...something to hold on to.

He was still terrified. He couldn’t feel, couldn’t see, couldn’t taste, had no awareness of even having a body. All he had was his mind and now what he could hear.

He listened to the voices and sounds down to the smallest minutiae, holding on to them like a lifeline. He fell asleep sometimes as time passed, although he’s not sure how exactly he knew it was sleep and not just his mind being too tired to hallucinate more.  

It was hard to get a feel for days… but sometimes he thought he knew. McCoy was there all the time, talking to him, talking to other doctors, to the nurses, to officials. McCoy was there in the afternoon eating lunch by his bedside, reading to him (had Kirk ever told him what books he liked to read when he was a kid? He couldn’t remember telling him. It was funny to hear the crisp prose of J.K. Rowling in a Southern Accent though and the weird phrasing of the Book Thief in McCoy’s gruff tones).

McCoy was always there, sometimes quietly crying (though he would never admit it), sometimes begging him to live… _Wasn’t he already alive? Wasn’t his body...but if it was, why didn’t he feel it? Why wasn’t he more than a mind?_

That was another thing he had noticed… As time passed it was getting harder and harder not to lose himself in his internal dialogue, to just shut out the world he couldn’t interact with. He was like a passive observer trapped behind a one way glass. He could see out but no one could see him.

If this was how it would always be…then he didn’t want to live like this. He heard people giving him medicine… he heard them talking about giving him more oxygen...someone messing around with his feeding port. Even discussing him while they apparently cleaned him after he had soiled himself.

_He wished he could wake up enough to rip it all away… he wanted to die… to live like this wasn’t life… he’d rather pass on into whatever was after life… probably nothing…. but a void was better than this not-life._

“ _Let me die.”_ Kirk screamed the words in his head for days after waking up. He screamed and raged, begging for death even as he heard McCoy talking about keeping him alive longer.

He deserved hell, of that he was sure. But this was beyond hell… this was torture beyond anything anyone deserved. To be in a living death for who knew how long until his body finally chose to expire….that worried him… _what if his body died but his consciousness didn’t… were ghosts real?_

 _“Let me die.”_ Kirk yelled again, trying with all his will to break through the prison that held him… he wanted to be free…

“Dr. McCoy…” Kirk felt a jolt as he heard a voice… it was Spock… he hadn’t heard Spock before. Spock he hadn’t even been sure was alive except he had heard the others talk of him. Spock, the person he had done this for… it was for his crew… but this. This was for Spock, because the older one had showed him what had been his past and what could be his future. And he couldn’t deal with that… he couldn’t deal with the possible variables of letting Spock take his place, of not dying for him… someone who didn’t deserve anyone to sacrifice for him when so many already had… What if whatever had brought the other Spock wasn’t here in this universe… what if this time death for Spock was permanent? He couldn’t risk it… even though he knew for him death would be final.

He hadn’t wanted to die, but he hadn’t wanted to be the one alive either...not when it would mean Spock would die. Spock may not care about him, but he always would care for him. After he had felt the Other Spock’s memories…he had known what was right… some things were always meant to be and even if they couldn’t be in this new universe, Kirk would cling to the memory and feeling of what could be.

_“Spock...You’re alive---now let me die.”_

“Dr. McCoy.” the voice was more urgent this time. Footsteps came closer.

“What is it?” There was silence, then McCoy said tiredly, “His eyes are irritated probably….There’s no pupil response...just like always...It’s  irritation not tears.”

McCoy’s footsteps faded again and then Kirk just heard the quiet breathing of Spock. “I am here Jim. I am here, my friend.”

 _“I am here.”_  Kirk felt the voice now, it was inside of him. “ _I feel you.”_

Kirk could feel it now, a presence soft and yet unyielding. He tried to reach for it, to use Spock’s mind or whatever it was to climb his way to consciousness. He reached toward the warmth, grasping for a purchase… and for a brief moment he touched him. Spock’s mind, sparked with immediate understanding.

His reply was more felt than heard. It pulled him back from the void he had been willing him into. _“I can no more let you die, than you could let me.”_

Kirk tried to stay there, holding onto Spock, so he wasn’t alone. But the contact faded as his weakened consciousness couldn’t withstand the intrusion. Just like that the string snapped and then he was alone again...in the cold, floating darkness….nothing.

“Not nothing, You are not alone Jim. Forever and always I will be here.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed that...I should be studying but let's live a little :)  
> beta'd by adustyspectatcle (any mistakes remaining are mine). Thanks a bunch dusty!


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